Everybody's a dreamer.

Host:
The city was wrapped in a slow twilight, that half-hour between daylight and dark when everything looks like a dream pretending to be real. Streetlights hummed to life, one by one, spilling their amber glow across empty streets slick with rain. A low fog drifted in from the river, blurring the edges of buildings and making the whole skyline seem like it had been painted by memory rather than fact.

Inside a narrow bar, tucked beneath a flickering neon sign, Jack sat by the window, his hands wrapped around a glass of whiskey, the ice melting slow and deliberate. His face was pale in the soft light, his eyes tired but alert — like a man halfway between wakefulness and some deeper kind of dreaming.

Across from him, Jeeny sat with her elbows on the small table, her hair still damp from the rain, her lips touched with a smile that was part amusement, part ache. The music from the jukebox hummed low — a piano tune, hesitant, nostalgic, the kind that carries a thought too heavy to say aloud.

Outside, the rain began again, light and rhythmic, like the city breathing in its sleep.

Jack:
John Lithgow once said, “Everybody’s a dreamer.”
He was probably right — though most people spend their lives pretending they’re not.

Jeeny:
(Smiling) You make dreaming sound like a secret crime.

Jack:
It is, in a way. Society rewards the ones who wake up, not the ones who keep dreaming.

Jeeny:
I think it rewards the ones who never stopped believing their dreams were real.

Jack:
You mean the ones delusional enough to confuse hope with evidence.

Jeeny:
No — the ones brave enough to live inside the evidence of hope.

Host:
Her voice was soft, but her words carried weight — like stones dropped into still water. Jack looked away, tracing the condensation down the side of his glass with his thumb, as if it were a map leading nowhere in particular.

The barlight flickered, momentarily dimming them both into silhouettes.

Jack:
You know, Jeeny, I used to be one of those dreamers — the kind who thought the world owed him something just for imagining it.

Jeeny:
(Smiling gently) And now?

Jack:
Now I know better. The world doesn’t owe you anything. It doesn’t care about your dreams. It just keeps moving, indifferent and magnificent.

Jeeny:
Maybe that’s what makes dreaming so sacred — because the world doesn’t care. We dream in spite of that.

Jack:
(Quietly) You always find a way to make defiance sound like faith.

Jeeny:
And you always make realism sound like surrender.

Host:
The bartender passed by silently, wiping the counter, his reflection fractured in the mirror behind the bottles — like a ghost who had heard this argument a thousand times before.

A long pause followed. Outside, a taxi’s headlights cut through the fog, illuminating the window where raindrops clung like small, trembling stars.

Jack:
(After a moment) “Everybody’s a dreamer.”
Maybe Lithgow meant it differently — not that we all aspire, but that we all escape.

Jeeny:
Escape from what?

Jack:
From the truth. From the ordinariness of life. From the quiet horror that maybe none of this means anything.

Jeeny:
(Leaning forward) But maybe dreaming is meaning. Maybe that’s the whole point.

Jack:
You think imagination saves us?

Jeeny:
I think it defines us. Every dream, every story we tell ourselves — they’re proof that we’re still alive inside the chaos.

Host:
The music changed — a slow jazz tune now, smoke curling through the rhythm. Jack’s hand tightened around his glass; Jeeny’s fingers traced the rim of hers. Between them, the air felt charged, alive, like the pause before thunder.

Jack:
You really believe everyone’s a dreamer? Even the ones who destroy more than they create?

Jeeny:
Especially them. Even destruction starts with imagination — it’s just imagination poisoned by pain.

Jack:
So what, then? Dreaming is inevitable?

Jeeny:
Yes. Breathing and dreaming are the same act, Jack. Stop one, and you stop the other.

Jack:
(With a dry laugh) You sound like a prophet selling hope in an alley.

Jeeny:
And you sound like a man who keeps buying it, despite himself.

Host:
A small silence bloomed between them, warm and unsteady. The light outside shimmered against the rain-soaked glass, painting soft patterns across Jeeny’s face — a halo of ordinary divinity.

Jack looked at her the way one looks at something they can’t quite disprove.

Jack:
You know what bothers me about dreamers? They never wake up. They spend their lives waiting for the world to match the picture in their heads.

Jeeny:
Maybe they’re not waiting for the world to change — maybe they’re just trying to remember what it could be.

Jack:
(Quietly) That’s dangerous thinking.

Jeeny:
So is giving up.

Jack:
You really think dreaming is enough to fix anything?

Jeeny:
Not enough to fix, no. But enough to begin. Every act, every creation, every rebellion starts with someone imagining something better.

Jack:
(Softly) And when it fails?

Jeeny:
Then we dream again. That’s what makes us human.

Host:
Her words fell gently, like rain fading into mist. Jack exhaled slowly, staring through the glass at the blurred reflection of the city — a collage of lights and motion, beautiful because it refused to stay still.

Jack:
Maybe Lithgow was right in more ways than he knew. Everybody’s a dreamer — but some of us just stop calling it that. We rename it planning, logic, survival.

Jeeny:
(Smiling sadly) Yes. We disguise our dreaming in order to feel safe. But the truth leaks out anyway — in every plan, every fear, every wish we don’t admit.

Jack:
(Whispering) You make it sound like dreaming is unavoidable.

Jeeny:
It is. Even cynicism is a dream — it’s just a broken one.

Host:
Jack laughed quietly, the sound almost tender, the kind that happens when truth surprises you but doesn’t hurt anymore.

The rain stopped, leaving behind a hush so complete it felt like the whole city had paused to listen.

Jack:
(Softly) You know, I used to dream of escaping this place — the city, the noise, the pretending. But now I think… maybe I was just trying to escape myself.

Jeeny:
(Smiling) And? Did you?

Jack:
No. Turns out the self packs light — it follows everywhere.

Jeeny:
(Laughs softly) Then maybe the only escape is to dream bigger — big enough to hold even the parts of you that you don’t understand.

Jack:
That sounds impossible.

Jeeny:
(Whispering) So does flight. But birds don’t stop trying because gravity exists.

Host:
The fog began to lift from the street. A single beam of light from a streetlamp caught the edge of Jeeny’s glass, refracting it into a fragile rainbow — brief, shimmering, vanishing.

Jack followed it with his eyes, his expression softer now, as though something inside him had exhaled for the first time in years.

Jack:
(Quietly) Maybe everybody’s a dreamer… because reality was never meant to be enough.

Jeeny:
Exactly. Dreaming isn’t about escaping the world — it’s about expanding it.

Jack:
(Smiling faintly) You always find the poetry in things.

Jeeny:
Someone has to. You keep breaking the light apart; I just try to see what it looks like when it falls back together.

Host:
The music faded. The bar grew still. Outside, the last drops of rain traced their way down the glass, catching the dim reflections of streetlamps like tiny comets burning out too soon.

Jack looked at Jeeny, and for a fleeting second, there was nothing cynical in his gaze — only quiet recognition.

Host:
And as the night thickened, the city seemed to lean closer — its heart beating beneath the hum of electricity and dreams.

Because Lithgow was right:
Everybody’s a dreamer.

Even the ones who doubt it.
Even the ones who call it foolish.
Even the ones who build walls to keep from seeing how endless the sky still is.

Host:
The fog lifted. The lights shimmered.
And somewhere in that delicate balance between hope and reason,
Jack and Jeeny sat — two souls caught between dream and daylight,
proving what the world keeps forgetting:

Dreaming isn’t what we do when we sleep.
It’s what we do when we refuse to stop waking.